Technical Tuesday–Calendars

Although I am retired, I need A Calendar, especially with all of the Online activities that are available for doing family research.

I had been using Microsoft’s Outlook for years. Worked very well, but that would mean I had to be at MY computer. I tried many other applications including Google Calendar. It was OK, but had difficulty sharing it with my wife. My goal was a working calendar for me, and the ability to share it with my wife.

This blog post will attempt to share how I manage my Calendar (singular).

Let me start by saying that I have MY calendar. Thinks that I have scheduled. For example, today, I have a Genealogy Club that I find myself leading, and we are meeting for the first time. We are meeting at an Adult living center. I have 3 webinars on the calendar today, and a Genealogy Conference starts today.

One of my sources for “things to do” is theGeneaWebinars calendar. It is a single repository (cool genealogical term) for members of the Genealogy Community to post their activities. I watch that calendar for new items, changes in an event, but I also “Follow” or “Join this site”. The Home Tab on that website talks about how to use it. But “following” that blog, I receive an email that something has been added, changed, or deleted. BUT I am not going to attend ALL of those events. There are so many great activities and I have so little time. Guess we know how that goes.

Going to my Google Calendar, I can link the GeneaWebinar calendar to MY Google Calendar as a choice of calendars that I have.

Lets start with a message that Pat Richley-Erickson posted on the Dear MYRTLE Genealogy Community recently (actually a few minutes ago). It’s a Google+ Hangout on Air, and it’s Wednesday, 17 April 2013 at 6pm Eastern (New York time). Now Dear MYRLE provides us a lot of great detail about this event. Question: Am I going to attend. This one is easy, OF COURSE I will attend.

OK, how do I get this event to my calendar, that is the events that I am going to participate in or want on MY calendar.

I head over to MY Google Calendar and SELECT the GeneaWebinar calendar.

There is My Calendar and Other Calendars. I have NOT selected my calendar and have only selected the GeneaWebinar calendar. It’s color is Green and any event on that calendar will show.

You will notice that at 2:00PM, there are two GeneaWebinar events, but there is the new event that Dear MYRTLE added that I saw on her community page. So, she cross posted information about her event, once on her community of Google+ and added it to the GeneaWebinar Calendar (Thank you Dear MYRTLE)

Not marked, but there is a light green event, which means that it has already pasted. Mondays with Myrt was held yesterday.

Selecting this new event, the details of the event are appear.

Be mindful of the Time and time zone.

I want this event to appear on MY Google calendar. You will notice a “copy to my calendar” link. Clicking on that link will cause THAT event to appear on my calendar.

A page appears with the information from the GeneaWebinar page, like the date and time, that I entered “Hangout On Air” as a reminder for ME where this calendar event is going to take place AND that I have added it to MY calendar. This is a COPY of what was on the GeneaWebinar calendar.

If this was an event, from another calendar, where there as an In Person Meeting, or that I had to travel, the Address, for example, could be added in the “Where” field. That was MY entry on MY calendar.

If the “platform” of the event was a Webinar, the Go To Webinar platform has a registration page to sign up for the webinar. The Go To Webinar platform has built in Reminders that will send an email prior to the Webinar. I liked the reminders.

How to get those same reminders for this Google+ Hangout on Air? Scroll down to the bottom of what is on the copy of the event and I can ADD the reminders that I want Google to send to me, and HOW I want to be reminded.

The Event Color, is the color of MY Google Calendar. I have set up so that I receive an Email 2 hours prior to the event, and Pop-up window on my computer 30 minutes in advance, and an SMS (Smart Phone Text Message) 10 minutes in advance. These settings are of my choosing, and I can have more reminders IF I need them. Like an Email 2 weeks prior to an event, IF I am traveling and want to be reminded that I need to get ready for the event.

The default setting from some events, from Google Calendar, is 10 minutes for all 3 ways to be reminded. Email, Cell Phone, Pop-up windows are gentle reminders that something is coming up very soon. That’s OK for some events, especially online events, to get me in front of the computer.

I save that new event to My Calendar. When I saved that event, I was returned to My Calendar where I selected MY Calendar (in RED), so now I am showing the GeneaWebinar calendar and MY calendar.

Oops, looks like I have a conflict just above the hi-lighted event. I have a choice to make at 2PM. Two webinar. I did that on purpose because I am interested in Both but may not make up my mind until the last moment.

I can now go back and de-select the GeneaWebinar calendar, just by clicking (with my mouse) on GeneaWebinars on the left.

This is a view of of my calendar. Clicking on any of them, will give me details of what I entered or what came from the the “other” calendar.

It is also a calendaring program (Oh no, another program). I didn’t use it too much because it was “another calendar” to maintain. It is great for sharing information with the family, but more work. HOWEVER, this application has the ability to link my Google Calendar to my Cozi Calendar.

In the Settings menu, on the Left, there is a Calendar URL that can be pasted from my Google Calendar, under Share Calendar, Calendar Details, Private Address, iCal, has the link for the Calendar URL.

After saving that calendar, now my Cozi calendar has my Google Calendar entries.

About 10 minutes after I added this Dear MYRTLE Genealogy Community, to GeneaWebinar calendar, to My Calendar (copy), this new event is on my Cozi Calendar, with all of the reminder coming from my settings in Google Calendar.

Sounds like a lot of work, but I maintain ONE calendar, I can share that ONE calendar, AND I have all of the reminders that I want of an upcoming event.

Isn’t technology great?

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 17th, 2013 at 7:19 am and is filed under Tools. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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About this Blog

The purpose of this Blog has changed over time. What started out to be an online version of some old Worthington Descendant Newsletters.
It has become a way to journal about my adventure into Family History, sometimes called Genealogy.
The change for me is more about finding out the stories behind the names and dates that I find about the people I find in my research.